Daniel has wanted to be a writer ever since he was in elementary school.He has published stories and articles in such magazines as Slipstream, Black Petals, Spindrift, Zygote in my Coffee, and Leading Edge Science Fiction. He has written four books: The Sage and the Scarecrow (a novel), the Lexical Funk (a short story collection), Reejecttion (short story/ essay collection), and The Ghosts of Nagasaki (a novel).

I ain’t your friend! I ain’t here to tell you the world is sunshine and roses. The truth is cold, hard, and dirty: your work was one of 500 some odd submissions we received this month. Just to make time to shag my girlfriend I had to dump 300 submissions in the trash unceremoniously.

Goodbye! Adios!

Time to visit my sick grandmother? Another 100 submissions dumped in the recyclables.

Out of the remaining 100, yours was probably the first to be gutted in an all out brawl between the literary strong and the literary weak. Yours was probably the first one to get dominated in the slush pile shower. Maybe, just maybe it survived an extra week by becoming the bitch of a stronger literary work.

If your work does get returned to you along with this rejection slip, don’t be surprised if it’s wearing lipstick and suffering from PTSD.

You want me to tell you that the world is sunshine and roses and your submission was special. Ain’t happening!

P.S. Please excuse this form rejection slip. This rejection does not in any way reflect on the quality of work. We encourage you to submit again.

Sincerely,

The Editors

Do you like rejection? How about "Reejecttion"? Check out the free short story / essay collection "Reejecttion" right here: http://issuu.com/danielclausen/docs/the_reejectts-7-23-2014/1